Pick Me Up
by Grindylowe
Summary: Things change between Master and Student when Shifu has a stroke.
1. with your feet in the air

_All rights are Dreamworks. This story was inspired by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor's TED talk. about her stroke. It is fascinating, touching, and worth looking up._

**pick me up**

Shifu tumbled awake.

It was as though sleep was a warm ocean that had rolled him ashore into his cold room. Half awake, he flailed to get back to the place he'd just left, struggling with the covers like a child. The sleepy waters gradually left him and he sat up, his head pounding.

The pain was sharp and cold, almost metallic, almost as though he had bitten into something frozen. It was a frigid steel ball of pain directly behind his right eye. He shoved the heel of his hand into his eye, gasping. Just as quickly as the pain came, it left, and he cautiously slid out of bed.

He made it halfway across his room when the pain gripped him again. He gasped and nearly fell to one knee. He stumbled, leaning against the wall. It was like being stabbed through the eye with an ice pick. He gasped and heaved, rubbing his eye until it went away again.

Perhaps I slept oddly, he thought. I'll do a little extra stretching today.

The pain throbbed once more and he slid to the floor heaving. Good gods, he thought, this is a headache from hell. His mother had suffered terribly from migraines, but he'd never had one. They seemed a bit late to start in his seventies.

He waited until the pain passed to open his eyes. He looked down at his hands, and noticed for the first time how incredibly strange looking they were. He flexed his odd, sticklike fingers. They moved like insects, like sea creatures. He was at once fascinated and horrified by his newly odd hands.

Puzzled, he looked at the rest of his body. His torso, legs and feet were all at once entirely alien to him. And his tail - what was it? An entirely new being attached to his ass! It was as if he'd never seen it before. He extended his weird stick hand to touch it. The fur was soft and familiar, but entirely alien. He could feel himself touching his tail, but all at once had trouble comprehending how, exactly, it related to him.

It's part of your spine, he thought suddenly, the way he might recall the title of a song. Right, right, he thought. I remember now. That solves that.

He shook his head. What an odd morning this was.

He was thirsty, and thought of going to the kitchen to get some water. It was an overwhelmingly pleasant thought, that water. He sighed and felt himself softly expand outward from himself, floating up and out of his body, floating through the bunkhouse, becoming the bunkhouse, becoming the kitchen, becoming a glass of water. It would be a simple enough thing to will the water down to him without moving a muscle. He was the water, after all. He was all part of the same thing.

The searing pain came again and he cried out. He was lying on the floor but could not remember how he got there. He sat up again, literally willing his body to move. He could hear his mind's commands to his limbs. Move the arms. Bend the knees. Move up. Extend arm. Using these odd commands he commanded himself to stand, and finally take a step.

What a lumbering, odd creature I am, he thought, as he wobbled unsteadily on his feet. What is this thing I am? His steps were stiff and clumsy, like a baby, and he fell. He saw the floor coming up to meet him but all at once it didn't matter. He was both the floor and the creature tumbling towards it. It wouldn't hurt.

He was, of course, quite wrong, and the impact brought him to his senses. He hadn't even been able to extend his hand and fell directly on his face. He rolled over, moaning. He put his hand on his face, realizing it felt funny. He couldn't quite place why at first. He felt along his mouth, his cheek, his eye. They had such funny shapes, as though his face was seized up on one side, his mouth and cheek and eye scrunching together as though he was looking at the sun with only one eye. He felt a trickle of fear.

He sat up, willing his muscles and tendons to work, and his gaze fell on a sheet of calligraphy that had fluttered the floor. He picked it up with his insect hands, looking at it.

The characters were squiggly, dancing, unrecognizable. He could not read a word.

The steady trickle of fear turned into a bolt of panic.

My brain has stopped working and I must get help, he thought, and the sharp headache came again, but with it that expansive peace. It was painful but the pain was just part of the everything. He relaxed and lay down, unable to distinguish where his body ended and the floor began, and not caring. He watched the beam of light that came in through the window, and the specks of light in it. He was the light, he was the floating dust, he was his night clothes and the air around him. It was such a sensation of peace, a peace he had never known. Maybe Oogway had known.

He was drawn back down from being as big as the universe to fitting inside his little furry body. By what mechanism this was possible he knew not. He turned back into a singular, terrified person, and commanded himself to get up and walk. He made it the three steps to his door, slid it open, and fell into the hall, back to the floor. He tried to cry out but couldn't, and he felt himself dissolving again into that beautiful boundaryless peace. He closed his eyes.

Suddenly there were hands on him, on his shoulders, lifting him into a sitting position. He opened his eyes and looked up into a wonderful face, orange and striped and lovely, with beautiful yellow eyes. Who was this lovely creature?

Oh, he thought. That's Tigress.

He came back to his singular self again, his terror and panic. "Tigress, help me! Something's terribly wrong!"

He was horrified by the sound of his voice. His words glommed together into a sticky log of indistinguishable vowels, like a man with no tongue. The dread he saw in Tigress's face was equally horrid. Oh no, he thought, why is she looking at me like that? It's bad. It must be very bad.

Tigress replied. Her mouth was moving and she was speaking, but her words made so sense. They were soft and flowing but had no meaning to him. Suddenly Zeng was there too, and his words were like a squeaking wood floor. They looked at him with pity.

All at once his fear gave way to anger.

No, he thought. I refuse this. I will not let it make me helpless.

Shifu tried to rise unsteadily from the floor. Tigress tried to help him but he slapped her hands away. She said something he didn't understand, and it was probably better that he didn't. He commanded his odd body to move and it did, jerkingly. Tigress was right behind him, like a parent encouraging a child to walk. Shame tore through him at being seen this way.

The ocular pain hit him again and his knees buckled, sending him gasping to the floor. He sat on his knees, doubled over in pain, driving the heel of his hand into his eye socket. Behind him Tigress and Zeng were making those odd purrs and squawks, sounding alarmed. Tigress leaned over him, talking in her indecipherable language, looking into his eyes.

He tried again to rise, and failed. And again. And again. Whenever Tigress tried to help him he swatted her hands away. She shouted something, her voice turning from that soft river into a stinging arrow. Zeng's horrid wooden squeaks followed.

Shifu's head pounded from the cold metal sphere growing behind his eye. The word began to spin. He furiously urged his body to walk, though he didn't know where he was going. He just needed to walk, as he had done for seventy god damn years without a hitch, as well as writing, and hearing, and ... and...

His stubborn body defied him and he stumbled, leaning against the wall.

Ah, gods, he thought gods. I can't do it.

He turned to face Tigress, boiling with shame. She looked down at him with such love and compassion it made him want to weep. She said something, softly, sympathetically.

"I can't walk," he said, his words a jumble.

She replied gently, her words soothing.

What he did next was an immense effort. He had fought armies and mastered every kung fu scroll, but none of it was hard as this surrendering thing he now had to do.

He raised his arms to Tigress, the way a child would.

_Pick me up._

ooo

She had wrapped him in a blanket like a swaddling child, tying him to her back, and raced with him down into the village to the doctor. He drifted into that expansive peace, feeling the beautiful world race by, but at the same time, feeling himself begin to shut down. He went limp as a newborn baby inside his soft cocoon, the soothing pace of Tigress's body rocking him to sleep.

His eyes fluttered shut.

_Let go of the illusion of control_, he remembered.

Oogway, he thought, you were right.

For the first time he understood what those words meant.

He was not the author of this. Any of this. Of his life, of it's beginning and it's end. As he felt his body begin to fade, so did the terror, and he willingly gave himself up to the universe. He was a tiny seed set adrift on a massive wind, and it would take him where it would.

Tigress had lain him down on a bed in some room he didn't recognize. Someone was scraping at his right temple.

She hovered over him. So beautiful, he thought. He reached up and stroked her cheek with absolute wonder. A look came over her he had never seen before. It was her love for him, he realized, unhidden and plain on her face. She pressed his hand to her cheek, weeping. Oh, my girl, he thought. I love you too, more than you know. More than I ever showed you. Why didn't I show you?

He shook his head, wiping away her tears, his vision slowly edging towards whiteness. He gestured to Tigress and she brought her face close to his. He drew her down to him and kissed her forehead.

"Love you, daughter," he said, struggling to make himself understood.

He heard her anguished sobs, and suddenly she was no longer there. He extended his hand in her direction, wanting her back. Someone had taken her away and he was surrounded by people he didn't know, doctors, nurses, barking commands, poking and prodding at him.

A wave of peace washed over him. You can't help me, boys, he thought.

The room faded away, his body falling from him, and he rose into the sky like a rushing wind, like a million peach petals blown softly from a cliff. He extended forever outward and touched the stars, a jewel in the sky, spinning away and away, merging with a beauty so profound his living mind and body could never understand it.

He felt Tigress's ache, felt her calling to him, loving him.

You will be all right, he whispered to her. I love you.

Let me go.


	2. and your head on the ground

A sharp intake of metallic air, voices, light as bright and painful as fire and consuming as the sun. He struck out blindly in all directions, feelings hands on him, shrieking in pain. Take me back, let me go back, he screamed, back to that peace you dragged me from!

Twelve demons holding him down.

He screamed and tried to break free but they held him, their weight like mountains, their smells familiar. He shrieked and kicked as they drove something into his head, steel grinding on his skull, cutting into him,. He flew out of himself with terror, shut down, wrapped in a velvet darkness, peaceful and complete, until he woke up at the sun blared into his eyes with a fury of a thousand brass horns.

Someone put something soft, warm, and wet over his eyes, that smelled like sweet flowers. He moved it off and looked around, but all he could see was a two dimensional fuzz filled with moving forms and tens of voices, all indistinguishable from one another. He shouted again, nothing but formless garbage coming from his mouth. The wet bandage was replaced. Pleasant pressure on his shoulders and back. Oddly familiar chirps. Needles.

Sleep.

Darkness, and calm, no flurry of demonic voices. Something warm, heavy and comforting was upon him. He put his arms around it. Soft fur. Someone. Some angel. He moved and his face pushed against smooth, warm pads. He was an infant again, a baby. He had died and been reborn, and was in his new mother's arms. Any instant now he would forget whatever he had been and start anew, his prior life forgotten.

He moaned. That wet and floral thing slid off his face and he opened his eyes. Orange and black fur. A sleeping head. The moon peeked in the window, bright and obnoxious, and his head sang with the echoes of a white caustic pain.

He touched the sleeping head. He knew this head. This was Tigress.

She moved, looked at him with her yellow lantern eyes.

"Shifu?"

Shifu! He was _Shifu._

And he was alive.

**ooo**

It was a struggle to make himself understood.

"Curtains, shut the god damn curtains_!" _ he tried to say with his useless, flopping hands, which may as well been flippers for all the control he had over them. "The sun is like a branding iron, you idiots!" All he could do was waggle his ineffectual top limbs at the window until someone figured it out, that someone being Tigress, because as far as he could tell she was the only person with a brain in the entire medical house.

Every attempt he made at language was an ineffectual mush of nonsense. Written language was no better. He'd tried to read the scrolls the nurses and doctors carried, trying to find out what had happened to him, but their writing looked like something a two year old did with a stolen brush.

He understood only half the words spoken to him, most of which were spoke by some pig bitch who wouldn't stop prodding. "Where is the DOCTOR?" he asked her, over and over again, his voice dripping from his mouth like week old congee, using his flipper hands to whack her hands away every time she tried to touch him.

"You mffrgt mraga stubborn meegf man!" the pig finally huffed, leaving his room, slamming the door behind her. A moment later he door opened again. It was Tigress.

"Thank goodness it's you," he said weakly. "The next asshole who prods at me is going to leave with a concave head."

He could tell from her face that she had no idea what he'd said. He sighed.

She pulled a chair to the side of his bed, smiling at him. She shook her head and said something, gesturing to the door.

"She's a stupid bitch," he breathed. "Don't send her back."

Tigress replied. "You have to fgggnrt cha bhhrtnu!"

"No!" Shifu groaned. "She's a stupid bitch, this entire place is full of morons who keep trying to shove things in all my holes." He went on to cuss a blue streak, saying every curse he knew purely for the pleasure of it, knowing she didn't understand.

She looked at him, bemused. " Gnah gruu finished?"

He grumbled. There was a sudden sharp pain at his temple. He pressed the bandage, which only made it hurt more. Tigress gently urged his hand away, shaking her head. A flame of anger rose in his chest but he let her move his hand. He was still shaken by what lay under that bandage.

Earlier he'd snatched a small mirror he'd found on the table next to his bed, able to move his thumb enough to hold it steady against his palm. He looked awful, the white of his left eye almost entirely red with burst blood vessels. They had shaved the side of his face bare, and slapped a gnarly looking bandage on his temple. The doctor, a crane, and pig nurse were distracted, consulting at the far end of the room. He took his chance and stiffened his fingers, shoving them clumsily under the bandage, levering it off. What he saw nearly made him scream like a woman.

A hole.

There was an awful, gaping, crusty hole in his head, with pinkish flesh beyond. He was so shocked he couldn't move. The doctor scolded him and slapped on a fresh bandage, saying something harsh and to the point. Suddenly desperate Shifu tugged at his sleeve, gesturing to his head, trying to say "Why? Why?"

Nothing the doctor said made sense to him, so eventually he drew picture. It was a head, with a pocket of black ink pressing against the inside of the temple. The doctor drew a drill penetrating the head, and the black ink draining out. Shifu nodded slowly, nauseated, his head pounding.

The doctor made a gesture to the nurse, who finished preparing something and crossed the room. She presented him with a long, thin pipe. He was hesitant to accept it at first, but the pain overcame his caution and he took the end in his mouth, inhaling a great plume of bitter opium smoke. A luscious stupefaction came over him as the hole in his head numbed. He sighed and lay back on the pillows. The nurse gently laid the pipe on his bedside table, indicating that he could take of it at will.

Just then the door opened and Tigress came in. The joy he felt at seeing her was immense. He'd awoken with her arms around him that morning, but she was soon taken away, replaced by the awful staff, poking and prodding when he just wanted his beautiful girl back, her smile and her scent, the only thing keeping the rage and terror at bay. He smiled like a stupid baby when he saw her, and he didn't even care.

It was she who realized he could understand spoken words, at least a bit. He'd fallen asleep after that, alarmingly quickly, as though his consciousness was muffled by a thick pillow, pressed into submission. He'd been sitting up and suddenly dropped over, helpless to stop it. It was as though his body had suddenly had enough, and shut off. Tigress guided him softly back under the covers, tucking him in like a child. She was so sweet to him. Where had she learned such tenderness?

When he awoke again he was sitting up, which was incredibly unnerving, as though he'd jerked awake while sleepwalking. Tigress was there, sitting by the bed, making those familiar chirps.

A little green thing hopped from behind him. Oh. That was the chirping thing.

Mantis!

With acupuncture needles!

"Hello," Shifu tried to say, his voice like spit up.

Mantis chuckled. "You look like shit, old man." he said.

Shifu nodded and shrugged.

"Did you understand that?" Tigress said with a sudden urgency.

Shifu nodded.

"Looks like he did," Mantis said.

"Can't be too sure. He's only been able to understand little bits of things for the past nine days or so."

"Nine _days_!" Shifu exclaimed. "It's been _nine days?_"

Mantis blinked at Shifu's desperate gargles. "He didn't like that."

Tigress leaned over him. "Master, if you understand me, point at that candle."

He did. She smiled, but not wide, not yet ready to be sure .

"Okay ... okay, now point at Mantis."

He pointed at Mantis, who gave a whoop of triumph. Tigress's paw flew to her chest.

"Now point at - "

Shifu pointed at Tigress, and she laughed, tears springing to her eyes. "Master!" she said, haltingly, "Master! We - they - we were worried that the damage was permanent - I - that you'd be mute, or deaf, or -" she took his hand. "But no, I knew you were strong, I knew it!"

He took a moment to look at Tigress, and realized that she looked like hell. There were dark circles under her eyes, her clothes rumpled and fur mussed. Had she ever left his side? She was clearly exhausted, her eyes shining and undone.

He pointed at her, the folded his hands by his face, tilting his head.

Tigress looked at him blankly and he repeated the gesture.

"I don't understand..." she said.

"I think he's telling you to go to sleep," Mantis said,

Shifu nodded.

Tigress laughed giddily, the way she did when she was tired beyond all reason. "No no," she said. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me. You worry about you."

Shifu was about to push it when his skull suddenly seared with a corrosion, that shot down his spine all the way to his hips, as though someone had plunged a sword of fire down through his entire body. He gasped and closed his eyes, feeling Tigress tense at his side.

"Master ... ?"

He pointed shakily at the long pipe on the table next to him. Tigress handled it expertly. How many days had she been feeding him that pipe, days he couldn't recall? The horrible acidic sting sent tears running down his face. He tried to take the end of the pipe but his fingers were like stupid thick floppy sausages. Tigress held the pipe steady for him, and he took a long hit of bitter smoke, then another. The pain faded softly away and he finally relaxed.

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold him up," Mantis said, and he felt Tigress's hand on his shoulders. Mantis was pulling needles out of his back. When he finished Tigress laid him gently back down. His eyes fluttered closed though he tried to keep them open.

"Go to sleep Master, it's all right," Tigress said.

He pointed at her again. You. You go to sleep.

She stroked his head. "Stop worrying about me."

He looked at her and sighed, shaking his head. The opium had fully kicked in and he was just happy, like an idiot. He kissed his hand, put it clumsily on her nose, and drifted off into the twilight haze of narcotic bliss.


	3. try this trick and spin it

A week later he went outside for the first time. He could barely walk, so Tigress carried him. They had given him a hat with a wide brim to keep the sun out of his eyes. Tigress sat him down in the shade under a tree, where the hospital staff had set up a blanket and a basket of soft foods. Solid foods were difficult for him. He could chew just fine, but the sensation of having something solid in his mouth was indescribably strange. He stuck to congee. Mashed pear.

Baby food.

"Is it nice to be outside?" Tigress asked.

Shifu nodded, speech still beyond him. He was thankful to be away from the stale air of the medical house. The breeze and trees and sunlight made him feel nearly alive.

He watched the grass by his foot blow softly in the breeze. The watching turned to staring. The way the grass moved was hypnotic. It seemed if he watched carefully enough he could see every molecule in the fluttering blades, and how they related to everything else. When he finally looked up the world was so huge he nearly fell over.

Tigress watched, amused. She had seem him similarly fascinated with the bed covers, a painting on the wall, her paw. And of course that ever-present problem, his tail.

Shifu's tail had become one of the most confusing things in his life. A great deal of the time he forgot that it was attached to him, and was convinced it was some sort of small creature relentlessly following him. He would catch a glimpse of it in the corner of his eye and startle, or start smacking at it in an effort to get it to go back where it had came from. It was only when he realized he could feel the smacking that he recalled the creature was actually part of him. At Tigress's urging he was slowly trying to think of the tail, if not entirely part of him, as at the very least a friendly thing, like a pet. He sometimes absently stroked it, like it was a companion creature. It helped him sleep.

"Master?" Tigress asked.

He looked up at her.

"I have a bit of a surprise for you today. Look," she said, pointing. Coming towards them were five figures. He squinted, focusing on the largest, a swaying black and white hulk of a thing. Another was some sort of pointy tube on a stalk. A long twisty green thing. A dense yellow fur thing, and a hopping green thing.

He looked at Tigress, utterly perplexed. She gestured to the figures, smiling.

"Hey Master Shifu!" Po called, and suddenly they five figures turned from strange assemblances of matter and color into his five students.

"Ma!" Shifu exclaimed, clapping. Tigress laughed. He was overjoyed to see them, which he hadn't expected. His condition was humiliating and he hadn't wanted anyone to see him in it. If he could have survived without Tigress's comfort he would have banished her from his presence as well. But over the weeks his pride had slowly given way, a bit at a time.

He clapped and raised his arms to them in greeting. Somehow it didn't occur to him to wave. He just put his arms straight up, like he had scored a goal in a ball game. Po smiled and imitated the gesture. "Woo! Shifu! All right!"

"Hello Master!" Viper said, slithering up next to him. Shifu's eyes grew wide as little moons watching her. Monkey, Mantis, and Crane said hello as well, but he was utterly captivated by Viper. She was absolutely the weirdest thing he had ever seen. How had he lived every day with someone that weird? She had no legs, how did that even work?

Astonished, he looked to Tigress, pointing at Viper.

"That's Viper," Tigress said.

"He doesn't recognize me?" she asked, sounding a little hurt.

"He might not." Tigress replied. "Don't be upset. He gets confused."

Shifu shook his head, then reached forward to pat Viper's tail in apology for being rude. The feel of her scales and the thick muscle beneath them was utterly bizarre. He gave her a little squeeze. She was a huge rope thing! He looked up at her face and she smiled, though she looked very confused.

"Nice hat, Master," she said.

"Stylin'," Po agreed. He had a large picnic basket and started unloading food. Shifu watched this process with interest.

"He's looking better," Mantis said. "More lively."

Tigress nodded. "They said we'll be able to bring him home in a few days."

"How did the surgery go?" Crane asked, looking at the bandages on the side of Shifu's head. A few days earlier the doctors had a smith fashion a small disk from gold, which they sterilized and placed over the hole in Shifu's skull. They had drawn the skin down over it and sewn it in place. Eventually the fur would grow back and there would be no evidence of the procedure at all.

"From gold?" Crane said. "Isn't that metal a bit soft for - ""

Tigress looked up at Crane in a way that silenced him.

Po chuckled. "You have a very expensive head now, Master. What? What are you looking for?"

Shifu was studying each carefully wrapped dish Po produced from the basket. He peeked under the cover of each before putting it aside. Finally Po handed him a dish that he kept, a sweet egg cake.

"Oh, you want dessert," Po said.

Shifu looked in the basket, pulled out a spoon, and dug in happily.

"That was supposed to be for everyone ..." Po began.

Shifu looked up at him and grinned.

"Well okay then," Po said. "All yours, Master. Wow. Have they been feeding him?"

"His diet's been pretty bland," Tigress admitted.

"I've never seen him shovel down sugar like that," Po said.

Suddenly Shifu smacked the lid of the empty picnic basket, making a loud popping sound. Everyone jumped and looked at Shifu, who looked back at them testily.

"Oh! We apologize, Master," Tigress said.

"Wha - ?" Po asked.

"Don't talk about him like he's not here," Tigress said. "He may not be able to speak well but he can hear you just fine."

"Oh! Sorry Shifu," Po said.

"I think the new rule should be that if you had brain surgery, you can eat as much egg cake as you want," Viper said. Shifu looked up at her and nodded enthusiastically, and became suddenly captivated by her again.

Viper did a little dance move from her days of ribbon dancing. Shifu dropped his spoon in amazement.

"I think you're blowing his mind," Po said.

Viper was so surprised she stopped dancing, but Shifu gestured at her, urging her on.

"The sheik demands cake and dancing!" Mantis exclaimed, and they all laughed. Viper twisted and spun and slithered, and Shifu watched her with the utter awe of a newborn baby.

ooo

Tigress had excused herself from the picnic and bid Crane to follow her. They strolled together through the small peach orchard adjacent to the hospital grounds.

"I complained about it too," Tigress said. "The gold disk, I mean. I told them that gold was too soft to withstand the kind of impact a kung fu master will take to the head over the course of his life. They said that gold was the best metal for the job, because the body does not reject it as readily as, say, steel."

"I guess that makes sense," Crane replied.

"That wasn't all they said, though." Tigress sighed. "They said Shifu was not in any condition to take impacts to the head, and that he probably never will be again. They don't know if he'll ever regain full use of his legs. It's ... unlikely he will ever practice kung fu again."

Crane was silent, considering this. "Did the doctors say he'd never recover for sure?"

"They can't know anything for sure."

"Then don't give up hope yet, Tigress. Shifu is strong, he'll pull through this."

"That's a nice sentiment, Crane, but what if he doesn't? What will become of him if he can't teach kung fu? It's his life! I can't bar to watch him just sink into despair."

"Maybe he won't."

"What do you mean maybe he won't? Of course he will!"

Crane sighed. "Let's cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now we should just worry about getting him through today. If he gets depressed when he comes back to the Jade Palace we'll deal with it then. All right?"

Tigress crossed her arms, then rubbed her eyes. "Fine. Fine. You're right, Crane."

"You're exhausted. Listen, why don't you take a break for a few days? We can keep Shifu company while you get some rest."

"No, not until we take him home. He wakes up in the middle on the night and he doesn't know where he is, and he ... he won't calm down until he ... he sees me ..." Tigress's lip began to quiver and she suddenly burst into tears. She sat down heavily on a tree stump.

"Hey, hey," Crane said. He put his wing tenderly over Tigress's back.

"It's just ... I can't ..." Tigress sobbed. "He's become ... like .. like a little child, and I ... it hurts to ... to see him so scared, and ... and, helpless, and in pain, and I ... I ..." she heaved.

"You're doing a great job," Crane said softly. "He seems really happy today!"

"Right now he is, yes, but that can change so fast," she sniffed. "He's like a child."

Crane thought for a moment. "Well, Shifu took you in, and took care of you as a child, right?"

"Yes."

"Payback's a bitch."

Tigress laughed, despite herself.

"This is just what kids do when their parents get old," Crane said softly, and Tigress started to sob anew.

"He called me daughter for the first time," she choked. "He said 'love you, daughter.'"

"Wow," Crane said. "That's wonderful. Why are you crying?"

"I don't *know!*" she said. "Every time I think of it, I ..." she seized up in fresh sobs. "Ah, god, I just cry all the time now. I can't help it."

"Go ahead," Crane said.

"Thanks for letting me blubber all over you," she said sheepishly.

"Anytime."

ooo

When they returned to the picnic everyone was dancing. Shifu sat on the blanket watching with stunned stupefaction at his silly friends. When Shifu saw Tigress looked to her, pointing incredulously at his students.

"I have no idea either, Master," TIgress said. "You guys, what?"

"Dance party!" Viper said. "He watching me dance and enjoyed it so much everyone started dancing."

"Hookahs and drummers and more egg cakes are on the way for the sheik, here," Po said, bouncing in a circle. Mantis did flips on Po, hopping from shoulder to shoulder, and Monkey walked on his hands.

"I thought the Master was the one with brain damage," Crane said, and Shifu burst out laughing.

ooo


	4. your head will collapse

*chapter four*

"I know it's bitter, Master, but you have to drink it," Tigress said.

Shifu winced, taking the cup. The doctors had sent him back to the Jade Palace with a horrid concoction brewed from herbs, leaves, and tree bark. It had to be simmered for hours until it turned into a sour, stinking sludge that he had to choke down.

Tigress poured cups of tea for herself and Po.

"On three," she said. "Go."

They slammed their hands on the table three times and downed their respective beverages in one go, like they were doing shots. He managed to get the awful stuff down, but he writhed from the bitterness, his eyes tearing.

"Here here here here here," Tigress said, handing him a huge cup of extremely sweet, hot tea, which he inhaled, washing his mouth of the awful taste.

"I don't blame you, Shifu. That stuff tastes like hate," Po said.

"You tried it?" Tigress asked.

Po looked sheepish. "I try everything."

Shifu grunted and tapped his empty tea cup. Tigress refilled it.

Shifu grunted again.

"No. You're eating far too much sugar," Tigress chided.

Shifu hit the table.

"A tantrum isn't going to get you anywhere. The doctor said less sugar."

Shifu grunted and crossed his arms.

"You're behaving like a child, you know that Master?" Tigress said.

"Come on, If you couldn't walk right or talk right you'd behave like a child too," Po said.

Shifu pointed to Po and nodded.

"Right," Tigress said. "I'm going down to the training hall, you two have fun."

Shifu pointed at Tigress. He put his hands flat on the table and made a push-up gesture, then held up six fingers.

She seemed puzzled for a moment, but then comprehension fell over her and she nodded.

"Yes, sixty push-ups. I know, Master. But I do them in the mornings now, remember? I have since I was thirteen."

Shifu's eyes widened. He put his hand to his forehead and blinked rapidly, astonished. When he looked up at Tigress he seemed so vulnerable and distressed she crossed the room and put her arms around him, resting her forehead momentarily against his.

"It's ok," she said. She kissed the top of his head, gave him one last squeeze, and left for the training hall. Shifu looked after her like a toddler who's mother had left the room.

"Well, enough of this nonsense," Po said. He reached behind him for the sugar pot, then began dumping it liberally into Shifu's tea. This brightened the Master's mood considerably.

Po usually spent the afternoons keeping Shifu company while the five trained, as being in the training hall seemed to cast Shifu into a terrible sadness. Sometimes they sat under the peach tree with snacks, and sometimes they just stayed in the bunkhouse and found things to do.

Po had tried to help Shifu regain his writing skills with a scroll and a pen. Though the Master tried he couldn't seem to form much else beyond lines, circles, and squiggles. Written words seemed beyond him, even though he kept trying and trying, and yelled formlessly at Po when he suggested gently he take a break. Po had to leave the kitchen for a moment, went into the hall to try to catch his breath, to hold down tears. Po knew Shifu had spent his entire life mastering difficult skills by way of constant effort. To see his Master try to regain something so basic, yet keep hitting a wall, was almost too much for him to bear.

One night after Shifu had fallen asleep he and Tigress sat quietly on the steps of the Hall of Warriors drinking tea.

"Is this just how it is now?" Po asked quietly.

Tigress's eyes filled. Her lower lip quivered.

"Oh no, I'm sorry Tigress," Po said.

She took a deep breath. "No. No, it's okay, it's something we have to think about. How ... how we're going to do this. How we're going to live now."

They were silent for a few minutes, lost in thought, watching fireflies looping lazily in the courtyard in front of the purple sunset sky.

"I think we have to get him to be less hard on himself," Po said. "You see how frustrated he gets just trying to write. I think we have to get him to stop getting so angry, and start having fun."

Tigress laughed. "Start having fun? Shifu's idea of fun was kung-fu until he broke something. He can barely walk down the hall now. How is he supposed to have fun?"

Po shook his head. "I don't know exactly. But I'm gonna think about it."

As Po watched Shifu drink his newly sugared tea, he got an idea.

"Master," Po said, "let's make soup."

ooo

"Okay, this should do it," Po said, dragging a step stool out of the broom closet. Shifu tried to step up onto it but his foot kept slipping. Po could see him begin to get frustrated. He quickly picked Shifu up under his arms and plopped him down on the step stool. Without waiting for Shifu's reaction he spilled a huge pile of flour on the counter in front of his Master, who startled, his eyes wide, then looked up at Po waiting to see what came next.

Po released a breath he didn't know he was holding, glad he'd managed to stave off Shifu's insulted protest at being lifted up onto the stool.

Po poured himself a big pile of flour. "Okay, here's what we do," he said. "So we've got flour, and we're gonna get this bowl of water, here - " he grabbed a large bowl and filled it with water from the water barrel.

"You with me so far?" he turned and asked. Shifu looked quizzically at the pile of flour in front of him, gingerly poking it with his slim little finger. Po smiled. Shifu seemed to be entering one of those odd fugue states he drifted in and out of. He was peaceful and docile during these, which was a nice change from waiting on tenterhooks for him to have an outburst.

Po grabbed a ladle and a pot of salt and put the bowl of water on the counter.

"Shifu," Po said gently.

Shifu looked up at him.

Po smiled.

Shifu smiled back.

"Okay, so, we're gonna put some salt in this water, here. Swish it around, let it dissolve. And then we're going to pour just a bit of it in the flour, like this," Po said. He poured about half a cup on water into the pile of flour. Shifu looked taken aback.

"Here's where it gets fun. You gotta smoosh it around. Put your hands in there and smoosh it around."

Shifu looked perpelexed. He gingerly touched the indent where Po had poured the water.

"No, you gotta get in there. Get your hands in there!" Po said. He took Shifu by the hands and put them firmly into the pile of flour. Shifu's eyes opened wide, his ears sticking straight up. He looked urgently up at Po, like he was going to panic.

"It's okay!" Po insisted. "Here, watch me."

He poured some water into his flour and began to knead it into a dough.

"Like this," he said. "It's easy! Come on!"

Shifu watched for a moment, and then began to knead the flour. He was unsure at first, as his hands tended to do things he hadn't intended, but it seemed virtually impossible to mess this up.

"Good!" Po said. "Now I'm gonna pour more water on, bit by bit, and you just keep doing what you're doing."

Shifu nodded. Po splashed more water on the flour, and Shifu kept kneading away. It was nice to do, soothing somehow, and Shifu relaxed for the first in what felt like a long time. The world fell away as he pounded dough into existence. Soon he had a big, floppy loaf of salty dough the size of his head.

"Awesome, awesome!" Po said. "Looks great Shifu! Keep it up and my dad'll give you a job."

Shifu chuckled.

"Okay, next step. We have to flatten the dough." He handed Shifu a roller. "Roll that sucker into a sheet. Beat the hell out of it." Po took a roller for himself. "Here, contest time. Let's see who can roll this out fastest. One two three go!"

They set into rolling their respective dough balls out flat. Shifu ran into a problem when his dough kept sticking to the roller, and Po showed him how to dust it with flower when that happened. They gradually forgot about it being a contest and just rolled happily away.

"It's just about thin enough when it's a little thicker than the tip of my claw. So that's about, oh ... three fingers thick for you. There, see, hold it up, measure. Yep, we're good to go. So!" Po said, "Now we cut the noodles."

He took a big hatchet down from where it hung. He and Shifu looked uneasily at each other. Po didn't want to offend Shifu by not offering him the hatchet, but he was pretty sure Shifu shouldn't be anywhere near such a thing. Shifu looked from Po, to the hatchet, to the flattened dough and back again.

"This can get kinda tricky," Po said. "The width of each noodle has to be pretty exact."

He studied Shifu for any sort of reaction.

"How about I ... just show you this time?"

Shifu nodded and gestured to the dough quite plainly. Po was relieved, but damn if he didn't know what would set Shifu off these days. Po brought the knife slickly across the dough, cutting a series of slim strips. He set the hatchet down and picked a strop of dough off the table.

"Okay, here's the cool part. Watch out, this'll blow your mind."

Po stretched the strip of dough thin, then a doubled it back on itself. He then pulled that apart and doubled it back on itself, until he had made tens of noodles within seconds. Shifu gasped and his eyes went wide as saucers. He craned his neck back looking up at the noodles. When Po finished Shifu soundlessly handed Po another strip of dough, demanding more of the mystical peformance. He watched with such intent fascination that his body went limp, as though he was hanging in space by his eyes.

"Wanna try?" Po asked. He handed Shifu a strip of dough. "Do what I did."

Shifu took the dough, looking doubtful that he could perform such sorcery. He stretched the dough and doubled it back on itself, then again. All was going well until his body suddenly jerked. An unwilling tremor went through his right arm and he glommed the noodles together into a mess. Po watched a train of emotions cross Shifu's face: surprise, disappointment, anger.

Before he knew what he did, Po snatched the messed up noodles out of Shifu's hand and replaced them with a fresh strip.

"Again," Po said.

Shifu looked up at him, his eyes full of anger and helplessness.

"Focus," Po said. "Again."

Shifu responded to these commands as though it were instinctual. He stretched the dough, folded it back on itself, again and again, until he had a small bunch of perfectly formed noodles.

"Good," Po said. "Again."

Po got to work on the vegetable broth. It was starting to smell good just as the Five meandered into the kitchen, tired and aching from training.

"Shifu!" Crane said. "Hey, are you cooking, Master?"

"Shifu's cooking?" Mantis said. "What planet am I on again?"

"The guy's a noodle genuis," Po said, stirring the broth.

Shifu held up a strip of dough for the Five. He began to show them what he had learned, but another tremor came, and he made a great glommed up mess of it. The Five pretended not to notice and merely spoke encouragingly of the upcoming meal and took their seats, but Po saw the frustration and embarassment in Shifu's eyes.

"Hey," Po said, tapping Shifu lightly on the back. He gestured to the pile of noodles. "Look at all these."

Shifu stared at it a moment, and then sighed. He put his hand on Po's, took his thick index finger and squeezed it. He smiled up at Po for the briefest of moments and then stepped carefully down from the step stool.

"You done?" Po asked.

"I should think so. He made enough noodles to feed an army," Crane said.

"Good. I'm hungry," Monkey said, and they all chuckled.

Tigress leaned in the doorway. Po looked up, met her eyes and was startled. She looked warmly at him, with more warmth than he'd ever seen, as though her walls were down and whatever she felt that caused this gaze she felt completely, from her core. It was the saddest, sweetest, smallest smile, and it nearly stopped Po's heart.

She blinked slowly, then went to the table and took a seat next to Shifu, fussing over him, leaving Po to snap back to reality.

"Bring on the soup, big'un!" Mantis said. "Chop chop!"

Po chuckled, bouncing the bowls back on his arm. "Order up!"


	5. but there's nothing in it

Shifu awoke to the cold stillness of early morning. The quiet was deep and thick as a quilt, but cavernously empty, deafening. What time was it? He turned towards the window. The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon. A ray of warm light filled his vision.

A sense memory flooded him, so real he gasped. He was being touched, tenderly, a lover's touch. He was overwhelmed with the feeling of being loved, caressed, kissed by someone who adored him utterly. Oh, it felt so good! He hadn't been loved this way in years, god, such a long time. How had he gone so long without this? It was like going without water or air. Such pleasure!

He sank into it. His eyelids fluttered and he closed them.

Who are you? he thought. Who WERE you? Only brief flashes of memory, a softness, a scent he'd never known again. Some secret beauty from forever ago - how had he forgotten her?

All too suddenly it ended. He was a little old man in a tiny cot, alone, with a broken body that only half worked. The space between him and anything warm and loving seemed vast and unconquerable.

Who was it? Who had touched him like that? Why couldn't he recall? Her beautiful presence left a cold emptiness and he began to weep, silently, privately, alone in his room, as he had wept all the tears of his life.

ooo

An hour later Tigress found him sitting on the floor in the middle of his room, his legs splayed out before him.

"Master!" she cried.

He'd been unable to sleep again after that potent memory. His head pounded the way it always did after he wept. He slipped out of bed to take a walk around the palace ground to clear his mind, forgetting his betrayer of a body. He fell after four steps and could not get back up.

Tigress rushed to his side to help him. He tore his arm out of her grasp. She seized him again and he tore away from her, shaking with rage.

"Master, please let me help you," she said.

"Leave me alone!" he shouted, hearing his own words formless and mealy and incomprehensible to anyone. They only made him angrier. He felt Tigress's hand on his arm again and he twisted, his arm swung around, and he struck her across the face.

She reeled back in shock, stumbling against the bed. She sat on the floor, her hand against her face, her yellow eyes wide and stunned.

"Oh god, Tigress, no - " he garbled, reaching for her. She backed away a tiny bit, instinctually.

"Why ...?" she whispered, blinking back tears.

He opened his mouth to reply but he knew nothing sensical would come. He looked away from her at the floor, flayed alive with shame and regret. He couldn't even tell her he hadn't meant it, that he'd never hurt her, that one morning he'd woken up with seventy years of self control reduced to rubble and he'd struck the person he loved most in the world, and there was nothing he could do to take it back.

He folded over, curling into himself, covering his face with his hands, and sobbed.

"Why this? Why this? Why this?" he cried formlessly into the floor, sobbing. "I'm better off *dead* than this! Why couldn't I have died on a blade like a warrior! I'd sooner slit my own throat than hurt you - oh Tigress, forgive me - "

Suddenly she swept him up and curled her body around him, sobbing. He threw his arms around her neck in desperate relief, burying his face in her shoulder. They remained like that until they both grew calm and exhausted.

"I can't do this," he whispered. Mush.

"Yes you can," she replied. "You're the strongest person I know."

He closed his eyes. She'd understood him. He'd spoken mush but she'd understood him. He sighed and felt his resolve begin to creep back in. He felt suddenly rueful and foolish. He'd grown so upset when he was unable to recall that lover from long ago, so upset this had happened.

Well, he thought, you're old, Shifu. You're going to forget things. Your body is giving out. You can't walk well. Your speech sounds like garbage. But, by god, you are still a Master, and your daughter still depends on you to be strong.

He set his jaw.

He slowly disentangled himself from her embrace. She looked up at him and he met her eyes with resolve. He put his hand softly on her face where he'd struck her and shook his head.

Never again.

She nodded.

He took her hand and pointed upstairs, in the direction of the kitchen.

"Breakfast?" she asked.

He nodded.

She smiled, picked him up, and together they walked upstairs.


End file.
